Couple older r7000's ...keep or go Orbi Mesh?

[pbc]

So here is my setup:

1. Rogers Internet via Hitron modem, gateway turned off so just used as a modem not a router, at homerun location in basement. "Gigabit" claimed speeds.

2. Single r7000 hooked up (via WAN) to the Hitron noted above. Running xVortex with an OpenVPN server that I use so I can connect my phone and view my IP Cameras as I don't want them port forwarded. No changes to stock Asus firmware in the Xvortex. Wifi radios turned off. Have a TrendNet gigabit switch connected to the r7000.

3. R7000 on main floor, wired to the basement switch. This I use in Access Point mode, and as my main wifi for the rest of the house. Set the channel manually.

Issues are:

1. Tried switching to Netgear stock and Tomato, couldn't get OpenVPN to work on either so stuck with xVortex which reading this form makes me a bit nervous, but the Asus OpenVPN server implementation is so darn simple to setup.

2. Typically get maybe 30-150 mbps speeds via 2.4ghz, and ~30mbps upload constantly. 5ghz is usually worse for some reason. Eg., just tried right now and:

- from right at the AP, 90mbps download, 35 upload. From about 30 feet it drops to around 40 and 30.
- wired to the AP I get 380mbps and 30 upload



Wondering if

1) I have my setup incorrect in some fashion that you guys would recommend changing for better speed?
2) I've read a lot of "issues" with the r7000 and speed drops, is that just with stock firmware
3) I should give up on these r7000's and go to an Orbi Mesh or some other router with AP's since I can wire them around my house?

Any help/comments would be appreciated!

 

[Easy Rhino]

only 380mbps wired when you're paying for gigabit? That doesn't sound right.

Start at the source and plug something in with Ethernet directly to the hitron and do a test.
Then plug direction into the R700 downstairs (which you're using as a wired-only router, right?) and do a test. Maybe you can find out where the speed is dropping, or yell at Rogers if it's on their side.

But are you having any actual problems? I mean, the slower speeds, are they they problem? Are you losing connections?

Also, if you really love the Asus VPN server, then you could buy an Asus product for your router. Just sayin...

 

[pbc]

Thanks.. Yes the slow speeds are the problem. If I was getting 200-300 on wifi I'd be pretty happy.

Dropping to 100ish from a few feet away and 30 from maybe 20-30 feet is ridiculously slow. Hence why I was wondering about a Mesh system, but I would think a wired AP system would work better unless the setup was faulty or products were failing.

The Netgear website forum seems to have tons of folks complaining about speed drops in their R7000s but cant tell if it is factory firmware only issues or the device itself.

Will check each individually.

 

[pbc]

Okay, so...:

Wired:
- wired directly to the basement modem or the basement r7000 I'm getting 591/30mbps
- similar speeds wired to the upstairs, actually speedtest is reading 801/41 from upstairs (weird...why would it be higher than the modem)

Wifi from upstairs router (again, basement router set to radios off)

2 ft
- 2.4ghz from upstairs router 102/30
- 5ghz 284/36

~35 feet
- 2.4ghz 60/40 (5 bars)
- 5ghz 182/33 (only 2 bars on signal)

Wifi from basement router (turned radios back on for test and turned off the main floor one)
2 ft from router
- 2.4 ghz 97/13
- 5ghz 83/11

from main floor (literally one floor up, router maybe 35 feet away)
- 2.4ghz 10/5 mbps (4 bars) tried it again a few min later, got 2/2
- 5ghz couldn't even connect as I was getting no bars


Such odd speeds all over the place.

 

[umarmung]

Something is very wrong both wired and wireless. At this point it doesn't matter what network devices you use, Orbi or otherwise, its a mess.

What exact model is your Hitron modem, what client model device are you using to test and what speed test site are you using?

 

[pbc]

Something is very wrong both wired and wireless. At this point it doesn't matter what network devices you use, Orbi or otherwise, its a mess.

What exact model is your Hitron modem, what client model device are you using to test and what speed test site are you using?

Hitron modem is CODA-4582U
Speedtest.net

If client model device you mean what am I plugging in, it's a Lenovo X250.

Thx

 

[System Error Message]

can you do a LAN speed test? have 2 devices test each other. For example you could transfer a file between them and measure the speed.
If you get 50% or more of the link speed for AC wifi utilisation thats good

 

[pbc]

So transfer a file from one device on wifi to another? e.g., two laptops running on the same 2.4ghz wifi? What do I use to check the speed of the transfer?

 

[pbc]

Nevermind, figured out how to do a Lan test. On 2.4ghz ... only 17.12 write, 15.97 read.

Couldn't seem to get the Lan Speedtest software to behave on 5ghz.

 

[pbc]

So earlier today I was getting 800+ wired on the upstairs AP. Now I'm getting 400. At the wireless router wired I'm only getting 231. Ignoring the wild speed fluctuation (800 before, 400 now), how is it possible I'm getting a faster connection when wired to the AP vs the first hop at the router itself??

 

[Easy Rhino]

This is so weird.

First of all, can you plug Ethernet directly into the hitron and do a speedtest? you can use both dslreports and speedtest.net. The fluctuations make me wonder if Rogers or the Hitron is just doing a bad job of giving you the sold speed.

Second, looking at the specs on this Hitron, it has four Ethernet ports and its own wifi, right? It looks like the specs are better than the R7000. Have you considered just using that as your main router? (maybe no openvpn server?)

Third, the Lenovo x250, if I read correctly, is a 2x2 Wireless-N device. So that would put your peak best-case speed at wireless speed at around 150mbps. So for any any peak speed speed testing you'll need to use Ethernet.

Finally, yeah, it does seem like something in the R700 router is throttling your performance. tim's originally review had it doing 900mbps + on basic routing performance. Ideas:
* check for any "cut through forwarding" or "hardware acceleration" features and turn them on
* turn off any QoS and VPN (at least temporarily)
* get newer firmware
* switch from Vortex to stock firmware, or DDWRT.
* swap the upstairs and downstairs units

 

[pbc]

Thanks, definitely need the OpenVPN server running, not sure if I can figure out how to get one running on the Hitron. If I can figure out how to implement the sever correctly on Netgear's stock firmware, I'd try that! Will look into the other suggestions as well though and report back. The fluctuations and general lack of speed is driving me nuts.

On the x250 max speed of 150mps, you mean via Lan test? E.g., speedtest is saying my wifi download speeds can hit 200-400mbps depending on the day, etc.

 

[System Error Message]

by speed test i mean transferring a file. You should be able to do it on 5Ghz too.

First start with wired to wired, on the same device, if you get 900+Mb/s you're good, 800Mb/s i'd worry and you should check your devices to see if the device is either too slow, running ethernet on old PCI, and so on. Once thats done, you can move on to other wired config test.

With wifi testing typically it is done from wifi to wired. For this is suggest having a separate SSID for 5Ghz.

I dont expect performance from 2.4Ghz, your practical performance will be about 10-30% of linkspeed whereas on wifi AC you should be able to get 50-60% of rated link speed.

 

[pbc]

Second, looking at the specs on this Hitron, it has four Ethernet ports and its own wifi, right? It looks like the specs are better than the R7000. Have you considered just using that as your main router? (maybe no openvpn server?)

Curious, what specs show up as better than the R7000 on the Hitron?

 

[pbc]

Also, in terms of access points. Right now I have a gigabit switch plugged into my r7000, and my access point upstairs is plugged into the Switch instead of the R7000. Is that setup okay as I plan on adding 1 or 2 more access points in the future to the R7000, assuming I can resolve the issues I'm having with speed throttling. I can't believe I'm getting 25mbps right now on 2.4ghz basically 40 feet from my access point.

 

[umarmung]

The Hitron CODA-4582 is an Intel Puma device (not good).

These are serious issues. You should,

1. only be using the latest stock software on all devices to test
2. do all the tests in the same period of time. First wired tests THEN wireless tests (wired far more important)
3. ensure your modem's WiFi is disabled (check with a WiFi analyzer program or app)
4. ensure your modem is in bridge mode aka. modem-only mode (simply disabling WiFi is not the same)
5. select the exact same and closest test server on Internet speed tests (Speed Test allows you to do that afaik)
6. when testing against modem only, repeat Speed Test three times to check its reliability
   
7. when testing against modem only, ALSO use an alternative speed, e.g. http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
8. when testing against modem only, check if your modem suffers from Intel Puma issues (will not rule it out as a problem, but if it does show, then you know have a modem problem too) : http://www.dslreports.com/tools/puma6
9. [very important] make sure you have no features turned on the router while testing: no QoS, no filters like Parental controls, no traffic accounting/metering, no services like OpenVPN. Make sure NAT acceleration is enabled (if visible) and no switches or other devices in between, if possible.
10. [optional] if you are technically minded or confident with the command line, you can use iperf3 client and server to test LAN-WAN routing throughput on the two routers individually. If you get less than 700 Mbit/sec with default TCP tests and modern PC/laptops, your routers are entirely not up to the task of Gigabit routing.
11. Also, try swapping the routers.

Once you know at least where you stand with your wired consistency and performance under testing, only then look at wireless. While bad wireless performance can be the most frustrating, it can be fixed by throwing in or replacing APs, tweaking here and there etc. If your wired performance makes no sense, your entire network topology and even your ISP provisioning is suspect.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Curious, what specs show up as better than the R7000 on the Hitron?

the hitrons 5ghz is 4x4 instead of 3x3. but probably no openvpn support. so if thats a necessity then its moot.

as umarmung wrote in more detail than i could, you need to start your speed tests wired into the hitron.

incidentally i have a cable modem with puma 6 in storage downstairs. it shows worse latency, but speed test throughput results were all great.

 

[pbc]

The Hitron CODA-4582 is an Intel Puma device (not good).

These are serious issues. You should,

1. only be using the latest stock software on all devices to test
2. do all the tests in the same period of time. First wired tests THEN wireless tests (wired far more important)
3. ensure your modem's WiFi is disabled (check with a WiFi analyzer program or app)
4. ensure your modem is in bridge mode aka. modem-only mode (simply disabling WiFi is not the same)
5. select the exact same and closest test server on Internet speed tests (Speed Test allows you to do that afaik)
6. when testing against modem only, repeat Speed Test three times to check its reliability
   
7. when testing against modem only, ALSO use an alternative speed, e.g. http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
8. when testing against modem only, check if your modem suffers from Intel Puma issues (will not rule it out as a problem, but if it does show, then you know have a modem problem too) : http://www.dslreports.com/tools/puma6
9. [very important] make sure you have no features turned on the router while testing: no QoS, no filters like Parental controls, no traffic accounting/metering, no services like OpenVPN. Make sure NAT acceleration is enabled (if visible) and no switches or other devices in between, if possible.
10. [optional] if you are technically minded or confident with the command line, you can use iperf3 client and server to test LAN-WAN routing throughput on the two routers individually. If you get less than 700 Mbit/sec with default TCP tests and modern PC/laptops, your routers are entirely not up to the task of Gigabit routing.
11. Also, try swapping the routers.

Once you know at least where you stand with your wired consistency and performance under testing, only then look at wireless. While bad wireless performance can be the most frustrating, it can be fixed by throwing in or replacing APs, tweaking here and there etc. If you wired performance makes no sense, you entire network topology and even your ISP provisioning is suspect.

Thanks...

- Reverted both routers to the latest stock netgear firmware and did factory resets on both and the modem.
- Placed Hitron modem in bridge mode (turning Gateway feature off)
- Checked for Puma issues, none were noted by the site you linked (a few red blocks but not much)
- Ran Speedtest.net (kept server same throughout testing) and DSLReports tests on wired connection with modem. Was getting a great signal on DSLReports (851/927/906), however "quality" was d, d and b. Inconsistent on Speedtest.net, with 849/580/398/454. Upload speeds were consistently around 50 +/- 5 in all tests.

- Put the Basement R7000 in router mode. Ran same tests wired (same server for speedtest.net). 465/599/489/450 on speedtest. 833/843/751 with "a's" across the board for DSLreports

- Main Floor R7000 in access point mode was the biggest issue. Speedtest wired gave 432/90/157. DSLReports 217/673/186/874/340. So all over the place (upload was consistently around 50 for every test)

- I then took the main floor r7000 and brought it downstairs, reset it and used it as the main router directly connected via WAN to the modem. Things became more consistent here. Speedtest was 434/422/530 and DSLReports was 697/739/711/704 with mostly "a's and b's" for grades.

- I took the basement R7000 and brought it upstairs and set it up as an Access Point (still using the "main floor" r7000 as the main router). Again, much more consistent now at 603/536/625 on speedtest and 720/642/697 on DSLReports.

Wireless:

- in the last config above, I tested the 2.4ghz mode and 5ghz speeds:

4 Feet from Router
- 2.4ghz in channel 1 (best available channel by far) with 20/40mhz coexistence turned off. Speeds dropped considerably to 80/70/75 on speedtest.net and 102/106/110 on DSLreports. Upload speeds again were 50 for both sites. Scores were a's and b's for DSLReports.

- 5ghz in channel 153 (again, unused) were significantly better. 491/419/397 for speedtest.net, and 367/439/419 for DSLReports

~25 feet from router
- 2.4 mode was interesting as the upload speeds were at times higher than download. Speedtest.net were 63/49/40 (upload was 49/50/50), DSL Reports was 58/60/55 with c's and d's.

- 5ghz mode was 213/200/205 for speedtest.net, and oddly 85/73/70 for DSLReports.


So some odd results in wireless for sure. Wired was relatively good I think except for the accesspoint variability on the one R7000. But that seemed to go away when I moved it downstairs as the main router and then swapped it with the basement one as the access point upstairs instead.

Wireless did not seem good at all, particularly in 2.4ghz mode.

 

[pbc]

Oh, and no special features were on. I.e., QOS, VPN, parental controls, etc. were all off.

 

[umarmung]

It looks like you have two problems:

1. 2.4 GHz performance of your 2x2 laptop client, Intel 7625 WLAN adapter
2. Access point switching consistency of your original Main Floor R7000.

I recommend:

• obtaining the latest Intel drivers for the Intel 7625 on your laptop operating system. Test wireless again
• check Intel's instructions for optimizing 2.4GHz performance: https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...4678/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking.html
• check if enabling Throughput Booster makes any difference
• check if the your operating system has had any recent problems with WiFi performance
• try booting a Linux LiveCD, e.g. a Ubuntu one, and see if performance significantly changes

If nothing works to improve matters:

1. Get a cheap AP to use on your main floor instead of the Main Floor R7000: TP-Link EAP225v3 or Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-AC-Lite.
2. [optional] Put the Main Floor R7000 into Bridge Mode, which I believe is some form of station/"client bridge"/"wireless bridging", and use it as a remote 3x3 WLAN adapter for your laptop.

This will maximise your WiFi throughput and should also improve your latency.

If you need multiple APs, then a cheap Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-AC-Lite solution would work best, at least until the next generation of WPA3 WiFi devices are announced.